


National Politics

by Laylah



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Assassination, Espionage, Gen, Politics, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-14
Updated: 2008-07-14
Packaged: 2017-10-21 09:37:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/223742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is, as he has always been in his country’s eyes, a weapon. There is only one reason to give this job to him, and not to a diplomat. The negotiations must fail spectacularly, and preferably before they have begun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	National Politics

The hotel is registered in another man’s name. It has to be; officially, its occupant is dead. But he has papers, when he needs them, and he has a hotel room in the district near the parliament building, and he has a job to do.

His orders were not written down. They never are. He only needed to hear them once. _The ambassador from Drachma will arrive in Creta’s capital tomorrow afternoon. He will attempt to negotiate a treaty between the two nations. See to it that the negotiations fail._

The man giving the orders, the agent’s superior officer, paid for their tiny perfect shots of espresso and returned to the Amestrian embassy without him. The agent sat at his little café table and watched the lazy flow of the river, the way it drifted on uncaring through the city. He stayed long enough to smoke two black Drachman cigarettes and drink another espresso, then walked back along the cobblestone streets to his hotel.

He is, as he has always been in his country’s eyes, a weapon. There is only one reason to give this job to him, and not to a diplomat. The negotiations must fail spectacularly, and preferably before they have begun.

He dresses, three layers of unremarkable clothing, reminding himself that the heat is bearable — the war he helped end a few years ago, after all, was in worse conditions than this. He braids his hair and puts it up, carefully, concealing it beneath a fedora. Finally, most importantly, he pulls on a pair of plain white cotton gloves, the kind any gentleman might wear.

He leaves the hotel by the back door.

It’s a beautiful spring day, and he’s smiling as he walks down the street toward the parliament building. The ambassador will be shaking hands outside before he enters parliament to meet with the Cretan ministers. It’ll be — the agent checks his pocketwatch — another half an hour.

He stops on a corner, shaking a cigarette out of his battered pack, and asks a gentleman passing by for a match. The man remarks on his accent — he speaks Cretan with a Drachman accent, a consequence of learning the former after the latter — and asks what he thinks of the treaty. It’s an exciting time to be alive, he says, when their two nations can make such progress. He suspects the gentleman will remember him, if at all, in a positive light.

By the time he’s finished his cigarette, there’s a healthy crowd assembling in the street. Most of Creta seems to feel the treaty would be in their best interests — Drachma, for the first time in recent history, has a more moderate government than Amestria. That government’s hold on power is still tenuous, though; one good nudge and it could implode.

The agent likes to think that knowing when and where to nudge is his specialty.

He’s watching from the middle of the crowd when the ambassador steps out of the fancy car, a round little smiling man who immediately begins reaching out, shaking hands with the assembled people on either side of the roped-off path. It’s slow going; there are too many people to make progress easy. The agent presses his palms together, waiting, concentrating on the task at hand. He has only one chance to do this, so it needs to be perfect.

The ambassador gets close enough to touch, reaching out to take hands one after another. He’s smiling, greeting people, the same stock phrases over and over: how nice it is to be in Creta, how thankful he is for the Cretans’ support. The agent takes his hand, holds on for just a second, and lets his will move: pushes elements out of one wholesome alignment and into another, destructive, one, starting the reaction that will seethe out of control without him. It’s like starting an avalanche; it’s like starting a war.

Waiting the next few crucial seconds is the most difficult part. The ambassador flinches almost immediately, but he tries to keep going, tries to act as though nothing is wrong. Two more steps, half a dozen more hands shaken, and he can’t keep up the act any longer; he staggers, his skin discoloring, and pitches forward onto his knees. People rush forward to aid him, young soldiers in uniform with hands on his shoulders, close enough that they might get caught up in it as well — one of them screams, just for a second, and then the reaction reaches its critical point and all three of them detonate.

The crowd around him panics, turning to flee, and the agent runs with them, the long easy strides of a man who’s had plenty of practice. Out of the main street, down one alley, over a wall and into the next; the sound of sirens starts in the distance. The agent ducks into a shadowed doorway, shrugs out of his long coat, and drops his fedora. The long braid of his hair snakes over his shoulder as he drops his gloves on the pile and reaches down to incinerate the costume with the power in his hands.

He shoves his hands in the pockets of his trousers and walks back toward the palace, following the second crowd that’s gathering now. The rumors are already flying, speculation rampant. Here, people want to believe that Amestria was to blame, though a few of them ask nervously about Drachman hard-liners. Back in Drachma itself, those echoes will be louder, and this reaction will chain to others. At the very least, negotiations will be delayed; it’s probable that the militant coalition will seize power again and derail them entirely. Amestria will have nothing to fear from either of her neighbors.

Idly, the agent wishes for a cigarette, but they were in the pocket of his coat, and besides, they belong to the character he’s no longer playing. He contents himself with watching the chaos, listening to the stories of the explosion as they get wilder.

This evening, after dinner, he’ll meet his superior officer in a different café, and he’ll get a new set of papers with a different name on them. He’ll listen to his new orders, and in the morning he’ll board a train, and go where his country sends him.

He smiles. All told, he’s done more for his country since the announcement of his execution than he ever did before it.


End file.
